A Seat at the Table
Alison
Hearing the commotion caused by Gwenla’s suggestion of sabotage as the answer to the town’s impending doom, the others gathered around her to learn of her ideas.
“Here’s what we know,” said Gwenla. “The largest group of nobility that has ever visited Wilderise is coming. Most of them have never been to this country, let alone this region.”
Alison noted the use of “country,” which was in and of itself a controversial stance. King Derkomai’s ancestors conquered Wilderise several hundred years earlier and ruled as monarchs over both Loegria and Wilderise. But Wilderise had retained its own identity, and Alison had found that many of its people had more flexible views of the monarchy than those in Loegria’s capital were able to express.
And the more Alison learned of the king beyond the reach of his propaganda and restrictions on speech, the more she sympathized with their position.
“It will be up to us to show them what we’re made of,” Gwenla continued. “I plan to be down in Fossholm when they first arrive to meet whomever I can and to learn of the schedule of events. Then we can form a strategy.”
“What kind of strategy?” asked Lady Sibba. The relationship between the old dwarf and the elvish scholar was strained, but they had a kind of mutual respect and understanding. At least they did most of the time. “How are we meant to halt the modernization of Wilderise by getting to know a group of nobles? And truthfully, why would we even want to?”
“I can speak to that,” said Alison. “I come from the most modern city in Loegria, a city defined by its industry. And I’ll be the first to admit there are truly some advantages to modern living. ‘Lectrics, plumbing, transit from place to place. But there are also costs, measured in lives and land. If they construct a dam near Fossholm, our town will be flooded. Herot’s Hollow will no longer exist.”
“But won’t we be compensated?” asked Lady Sibba.
“Do you trust Derkomai to pay you fairly for the schoolhouse?” Weyland asked her in response. “And what about those who rent from our Lord? Do you think he’s likely to find them other living arrangements?”
Lady Sibba opened her mouth to argue, but sensing Weyland’s mood, she closed it again.
“I’m with Weyland,” said Keir. “I don’t want to see this town underwater, regardless of what coin changes hands. But Gwenla, what would you have us do? Let’s say we find out what they’re planning. How can any of us possibly stop it?”
“You might have a seat at the table,” said Gwenla. “If you could talk to your father—”
Alison shot Gwenla a warning look, and she changed her tack before Keir could respond. “Or if we could find a way to convince the right people that this land should be preserved, maybe it could make a difference. Or—and this I’ll admit is a stretch, but I think we should consider all options available to us—we could consider asking the spriggan and the other creatures of the forest and the land to help.”
“To help or to hurt? You saw the spriggan when we raised the standing stones. He could be dangerous,” said Lady Sibba.
“Not to hurt,” said Gwenla. “Obviously not. But if he were to scare them a little, well, would it be such a bad thing to do?”
Their debate continued, but Keir pulled Alison to the side to speak with her privately.
“You know what she’s going to ask you,” he said. “You don’t have to do it. I could try to talk to my father. Not to convince him, that’s definitely not an option, but if I showed him some interest in getting involved in court life, in learning to manage the estate…”
“You don’t need to do that. I don’t want you to spend a moment longer with that man than necessary.” Alison had learned much of Keir’s father from his stories and their one brief interaction the first time he brought a dwarven industrialist into town, and her opinion of him was lower than even Keir’s. In fact, Alison’s chief concern with any activity involving the new arrivals to Fossholm was getting through a meeting with her (possible) future father-in-law without punching him in the face.
“It’s not something I can avoid forever, Alison.”
There was a part of Alison that was proud of Keir for suggesting this course at all. He could barely speak of his father when they first met. “I know that,” she said. “And it’s good of you to try to find a way to help the town, even at a terrible cost. For me, it will be no cost at all to visit the spriggan. And there’s another group I can call upon that will have strong opinions on anything that will impact the local waters.”
Alison returned to a tense scene between her friends, who all were the type to be very strongly convicted of their opinions, but who also cared for each other deeply and did not want to cause harm. “Gwenla, I’m happy to speak to the spriggan again on behalf of the town. But there’s another friend I made when traveling here a few months ago who may be able to offer even more to our current mission. Have you met the korrigans that gather near the falls of Fossholm?”
“You mean the drowners? I heard they brought one before the king himself. I didn’t think they’d made it out of there alive.”
Recalling the inflammatory rhetoric Nolwynn had used regarding the king, Alison wasn’t entirely sure how she had made it out of there. “It was that very korrigan that I met, although she would take great offense to being called a ‘drowner.’ Her name is Nolwynn, and she is both lovely and fierce, and her people are responsible for no drownings as far as I know. I can imagine no greater ally, considering her people will be directly impacted by whatever happens to our waters.”
“That’s truly terrific news! Lady Sibba here has also had a wonderful notion of using the poetry book you and Weyland are making to educate the nobles about the region and drum up support among the more reasonable in the bunch.” Gwenla nodded to Lady Sibba, who seemed pleased to be given some credit.
“We won’t be ready by the time they arrive, but certainly before the end of the summer,” said Alison.
“Then it’s settled,” said Keir. “Alison, I wanted to catch Aras before he leaves.” Keir gestured to Aras, who had taken a seat on a table near the front of the forge. Aras caught his signal and fluttered over, his tiny white wings flapping so quickly that Alison could only see a blur behind him as he moved.
“Would you mind walking with us a moment, Aras?” asked Keir. “Or flying, I suppose.”
“Of course,” said Aras.
Alison said her goodbyes to Weyland, gaining his reassurance that he would be alright before joining Keir and Aras as they left the forge and turned back into town.
Once they were out of earshot, Keir turned to the small man floating between him and Alison. Aras looked exactly like a human, other than his Eighthling stature and green hair streaked with white.
“Aras,” said Keir. “Over the past few weeks since our ordeal, have you noticed any changes? Anything out of the ordinary? Things you haven’t been able to explain?”
Alison looked at Keir, puzzled by his inquiry.
Aras seemed puzzled as well. “What do you mean? It’s been a perfectly ordinary spring for me. The winter crops produced well this year, and the summer crops have just gone in. The lambs were good this year as well.”
“Extraordinarily good?” asked Keir.
“No, not extraordinarily. Just slightly better-than-average. A few more twins than usual.”
“Twins,” Keir muttered.
“Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason. There’s just been a good bit of luck about lately. Just wondering if it was affecting you as well.”
Aras was not so easily fooled. “Ah, I see. You’re wondering if my experience in the old magic’s dream world had some kind of lasting impact on me. Well, if it has, it has escaped my notice. Has it had an impact on you?” Aras looked from Keir to Alison, piecing something together before Alison managed to do so herself.
“Just a better-than-average year for the crops for us as well. Perhaps the ash from the vine has been the difference. I thought it was worth asking, and maybe keeping an eye out in case anything were to change.”
“I appreciate your concern,” said Aras. “Since you asked, I’ll tell you what I didn’t have a chance to during our ordeal. Most of the fairies gave up the old magic along with the old ways long ago when we joined the other peoples. But there are some of my people who resisted the change, who prefer to keep to themselves in the wilder parts of the world. You can find such a group not far from here if you know where to look.”
Alison couldn’t understand their meaning, but she did see a potential use in making contact with the fairies: their magic could prove useful in whatever plan they concocted to halt the dam’s construction. “And where should we look for them?”
“They’re easiest to find in the moonlight, particularly under a full moon. They enjoy the cowslips in the pastures, although their time is pretty much done for the season. Around this time, you’ll often find them near foxgloves, though only those growing wild. And be careful if they offer you food or drink—foxgloves are delicious to our kind, but they’re deadly poisonous to you. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific. They are wanderers and won’t be spotted in the same place twice.”
“Are they dangerous?” asked Keir.
“No, not intentionally. But they don’t understand the differences in our kinds, so be on your guard. And beware if they lead you into the woods at night. There are other, fouler things than fairies there.”
“Thank you, Aras.” Alison shook his little hand, and Aras flitted back to the forge to rejoin his family.
Only once they had turned down the lane towards their cottages did Alison confront Keir.
“What was that about?” she asked. “And don’t try to tell me it’s nothing or good luck. I saw the look that passed between you.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to conceal anything from you. I thought you would have guessed my meaning.”
“I haven’t noticed anything unusual about you. Any lingering effects from the vine.” Although Alison had only met Keir long after he’d accidentally summoned it and wouldn’t have known the difference, truth be told.
“It’s not me,” he said. “It’s you.”
“Me? That’s absurd.” Things hadn’t been exactly ordinary for Alison, but that was due to the wild upheaval of her life and lifestyle for a completely different kind of existence in a short period of time.
Wasn’t it?
“There’s the business with the pain reduction,” Keir began. “One occurrence is unusual, but two in just over a week?”
“Couldn’t it be that my bedside manner just offers some degree of comfort? Nothing unnatural, just a temporary reprieve or distraction from suffering.”
“It could,” he admitted. He stroked the hair on his jaw, a dark beard beginning to form after a few days away from the razor. “But there are other things.”
“Like what?” asked Alison. “When were you going to mention it to me?”
Keir had some ideas about keeping things from Alison for her protection that she did not like. Especially since it was a flaw that she shared, having done the same to him and having suffered the consequences.
“I was not trying to conceal something from you,” he said, reaching for her hand. She allowed him to take it. “I’m still not certain of it myself. But I’ll tell you everything I’ve noticed. Starting with the garden.”
They had reached Alison’s gate. Beyond it, a large section had been cleared in front of the white cottage for a vegetable garden, which Alison had planted with the help of Gwenla and the farm boy Brytak, a young orc whose family managed the largest farm in Herot’s Hollow.
Keir led her into the rows of vegetables. Most of the cool weather crops—lettuce, cabbage, spinach, arugula, and radishes—had been cleared after a very short first season, but there were still some kale, carrots, and garlic growing behind the newly planted summer fruits and vegetables.
“You see this row? This is a section Brytak planted.”
It was an ordinary row of carrots. Alison did not see his point. “Those carrots are doing just fine. See, you can see a bit of their tops. Brytak said that means they’ll be ready soon.”
“They will be. But look at them in comparison to this row.”
“I planted that row,” said Alison.
Keir knelt to the ground and gently wiggled a carrot loose from the soil. It was fully grown. “I know you did,” he said. “I watched you. You planted them a week after Brytak, just as he told you to, to allow you to stagger your harvest. And yet they produced before the ones he planted, and far more as well.”
Alison didn’t know much about gardening aside from what the locals had told her, but she didn’t see anything sinister in the situation. “I imagine there could be one hundred explanations for that. Differences in the soil or water. Differences in the seed. The heat, the light. There are so many things that go into growing plants. Perhaps the vine was particularly thick here, and the ground contains more ash as a result.”
“All plausible,” he said. “Again, maybe I’m making a fuss out of nothing. Can you see why I didn’t think it was worth mentioning before?”
“What else?” asked Alison. “You said there were other things.”
Keir led Alison from the garden into the cottage. The living room had been brightened considerably over the past several weeks through the addition of a number of decorative touches: new curtains in a bright yellow and green check pattern; new pillows on the sofa, hand-embroidered by Lydiach, the fairy tailor; a number of books added to the bookshelves along with Alison’s pictures, including a particularly beloved portrait of Alison as a child with her mother and late father taken with what had then been an exciting new piece of dwarven technology, the picture-taker; and finally, a number of plants which thrived indoors, although Alison had to be careful of which ones to include as Dinah liked to eat the ones that made her sick. (“The trouble with city cats,” Willow had said ruefully.)
Keir took his usual seat on the sofa, and Alison joined him in her usual spot as well, though she declined to recline against him as was her habit. “That plant over there, for one. It’s particularly fussy. I’ve never kept it alive for long.”
“It sounds as though most of your evidence relates to my green thumb. Are you truly concerned, or are you perhaps just a little jealous?” There was a teasing tone in her voice. Any anger she had felt at him keeping things from her had passed.
“Maybe that’s it,” he said, not quite returning her smile. “Although there’s also the dust that seems to vanish when you sweep, even though I’ve never seen you use a dustpan.”
“My repair work on the flooring was, how did you say it? ‘Inadequate, and possibly incredibly dangerous’?” Keir had insisted on redoing most of the repairs she had made to the cottage, which she had been quite proud of. The comments about “life-threatening infections resulting from rusty nails piercing the flesh” and “broken limbs resulting from falling through the floor and into the cellar” had seemed frankly unnecessary, and rather insulting besides. But she had allowed him to do it nonetheless, although he had only finished the flooring only recently. “There was ample space for the dust to fall through before you removed the excellent time-saving option of sweeping it into the little gaps.”
This time, Keir laughed. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Very well. You’ve convinced me. I won’t drag you to see the fairies to see if they can help you after all.”
“I do want to see the fairies though,” said Alison. “They may be able to help us with the dam situation.”
“Gwenla must be so grateful to have you around to get involved in her schemes,” Keir said lightly. There was no malice in his mockery. Alison knew Keir thought as highly of Gwenla and her schemes as Alison did herself. Gwenla truly loved the town, and they were both only too happy to help her preserve it.
“Of course she is. And I’ll admit that I just want to meet the wild fairies for myself. My father read me so many fairy stories when I was a child, but he told me they were from long ago. I never imagined I might have a chance to meet them. Although, it’s a pity what Aras said about the food. The city fairies of Arcas Dyrne make the finest meals of all. Or so I’ve heard. I never managed to try them for myself.”
“Something we can bear in mind for future travels,” said Keir. Alison liked to hear him talk about the future. It comforted her to imagine having him in her life for a long time. Maybe forever, though she wasn’t ready to say that to him quite yet.
Keir continued, sensing Alison’s hesitation. “It sounds like the fairies won’t be easy to find, though. Maybe we can look for them while we’re out with the korrigans.”
“And the spriggan,” said Alison.
“And the spriggan,” said Keir. “Though I’m not in a hurry to meet him again. He did try to kill me.”
“Only because of the old magic. Hey, there’s our answer.” Alison didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it before. “If I do have the old magic affecting me, the spriggan will surely know.”
“He’ll know, and he’ll try to kill you. Maybe I should go see him alone then.” Keir sat upright, his brow furrowed in worry.
“Not a chance,” said Alison. “But you will come with me, won’t you? Just in case?” Alison doubted there was any reason the spriggan might turn violent as it had during their first encounter, but she had no way to bind it this time if it did. The only ash of the old vine that had been preserved belonged to Duncan Corbett, the town’s archivist. And although he would give it over if asked, Alison agreed that it should be preserved for future research purposes.
“Of course I’ll come,” said Keir. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips. “After lunch, though. I’m starving.”
A wonderful answer. Alison joined him in the kitchen, accompanied shortly by Willow and Dinah, who were never far away when the possibility of food was around. There, they prepared a hearty meal of vegetable stew for the humans and tinned fish for the cats, filling up for the adventures to come.